It’s always so exciting to wake up to new announcements from Criterion. It’s especially exciting when one of those announcements is for a new Godard release. I’m such a nerd for this stuff. While neither of these films appear on our list of Criterion titles that need to be on Blu-ray ASAP, I still can’t wait to get my hands on these. September 22nd can’t come soon enough!
PIERROT LE FOU
(September 22, 2009 – MSRP $39.95)
Video: 2.35:1 AVC
Audio: French mono PCM
Dissatisfied in marriage and life, Ferdinand (Jean-Paul Belmondo) takes to the road with the babysitter, his ex-lover Marianne Renoir (Anna Karina), and leaves the bourgeoisie behind. Yet this is no normal road trip: genius auteur Jean-Luc Godard‘s tenth feature in six years is a stylish mash-up of consumerist satire, politics, and comic-book aesthetics, as well as a violent, zigzag tale of, as Godard called them, “the last romantic couple.” With blissful color imagery by cinematographer Raoul Coutard and Belmondo and Karina at their most animated, Pierrot le fou is one of the high points of the French New Wave, and was Godard’s last frolic before he moved ever further into radical cinema.
Special features include:
• “A Pierrot Primer”, a new video program with audio commentary by filmmaker Jean-Pierre Gorin
• “Godard, l’amour, la poésie”, a fifty-minute French documentary about director Jean-Luc Godard and his work and marriage with Karina
• Archival interview excerpts with Godard, Karina, and actor Jean-Paul Belmondo
• Theatrical trailer
• A booklet featuring a new essay by critic Richard Brody, a 1969 review by Andrew Sarris, and a 1965 interview with Godard
THE COMPLETE MONTEREY POP FESTIVAL
(September 22, 2009 – MSRP $39.95)
Video: 1.33:1 AVC
Audio: New 5.1 mixes by legendary recording engineer Eddie Kramer, presented in Dolby Digital and DTS
On a beautiful June weekend in 1967, at the height of the “Summer of Love,” the first and only Monterey International Pop Festival roared forward—capturing a decade’s spirit and ushering in a new era of rock and roll. Monterey would launch the careers of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Otis Redding, but they were just a few among a wildly diverse cast including Simon and Garfunkel, The Mamas and the Papas, The Who, The Byrds, Hugh Masekela, and the extraordinary Ravi Shankar.
Special features include:
• Two hours of performances not included in the original film, from the following artists: The Association, Big Brother and the Holding Company, The Blues Project, The Byrds, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Country Joe and the Fish, The Electric Flag, Jefferson Airplane, Al Kooper, The Mamas and the Papas, Laura Nyro, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Simon and Garfunkel, Tiny Tim, and The Who
• Audio commentary on Monterey Pop by Festival producer Lou Adler and D.A. Pennebaker
• New video interview with Lou Adler and D.A. Pennebaker
• Audio interviews with Festival producer John Phillips, Festival publicist Derek Taylor, and performers Cass Elliot and David Crosby
• Photo essay by photographer Elaine Mayes
• Original theatrical trailer for Monterey Pop
• Original theatrical radio spots for Monterey Pop
• Monterey Pop scrapbook
• Audio commentary on Jimi Plays Monterey by music critic and historian Charles Shaar Murray
• Two audio commentaries on Shake! by music critic and historian Peter Guralnick:
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◦ Otis Redding’s Monterey performance, song by song
◦ Redding before and after Monterey
• Interview with Phil Walden, Otis Redding’s manager from 1959 to 1967
• Original theatrical trailer for Jimi Plays Monterey
• Video excerpt: Pete Townshend on Monterey and Jimi Hendrix
The three Monterey films will also be available separately as Monterey Pop and Jimi Plays Monterey and Shake! Otis at Monterey.
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